Global Witness Pulls Out Of The Kimberley Process

Global Witness announced Monday that it had pulled out of the Kimberley Process, the international certification scheme established to stop the trade in blood diamonds, citing the process’ “refusal to evolve” and an inability to address key loopholes.

The Kimberley process was started in 2003 to control and monitor the trade in rough diamonds and prevent the sale of so-called conflict diamonds. The diamond industry, rights groups and 75 countries, including the U.S., participate in the process.

Global Witness said Monday that the process has failed to address the clear links “between diamonds, violence and tyranny,” despite intensive reform efforts by a coalition of NGOs.

“Nearly nine years after the Kimberley Process was launched, the sad truth is that most consumers still cannot be sure where their diamonds come from, nor whether they are financing armed violence or abusive regimes” said Charmian Gooch, the founding director of Global Witness, in a news release. “The scheme has failed three tests: it failed to deal with the trade in conflict diamonds from Côte d’Ivoire, was unwilling to take serious action in the face of blatant breaches of the rules over a number of years by Venezuela and has proved unwilling to stop diamonds fuelling corruption and violence in Zimbabwe. It has become an accomplice to diamond laundering – whereby dirty diamonds are mixed in with clean gems.”

Specifically, the good governance group cited the recent authorization by the Kimberley process of exports from two companies operating in the controversial Marange diamond fields in Zimbabwe.

A report by Human Rights Watch accused the Zimbabwean army of killing miners to gain control of the site and senior figures in Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF party of using revenue from the fields to buy loyalty from security forces. The Zimbabwean government has denied the accusations.

The Kimberley Process couldn’t be reached for comment. The U.S. State Department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Global Witness called for the diamond industry to adhere to independent third-party audits and regular public disclosures to ensure diamond sales are not fueling abuses. The group also said governments should put international standards on minerals supply chain controls into law.

Comments (2 of 2)

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12:52 am December 6, 2011

Chuck Blakeman wrote :

Global Witness took credit for creating Kimberley and writing the Kimberley Process Technical Documentation. It was supposed to rid Africa of criminals connected to diamonds, an incredibly naive and misguided approach. Kimberley, as with the new Dodd-Frank approach to minerals in the Congo, targeted the symptom (one of many revenue sources for the militia), instead of the cause - the militia themselves.

Even if it would have been successful at keeping criminals from selling diamonds, which it was not, the criminals would have just moved on to gold, tantalum, tungsten and tin. So to solve that, let's just create an onerous and unworkable process for those minerals as well called Dodd-Frank. And who will this hurt? Only the innocent, law-abiding miner. The criminals will just keep on like they do in the diamond trade.

Criminals in the Congo also own restaurants - should we put together a verification process to make it harder for law-abiding restaurant owners to do business as well? They also steal agricultural goods. Should we make it harder for law-abiding farmers to do business as well?

Here's a radical thought. Go after the cause - the militia. The UN has stood by for 15+ years and watched people get robbed, raped and killed in the Congo. They have even participated in the smuggling. We need to grow a backbone and go after the cause and root them out. Australia doesn't need a Dodd-Frank Act because they don't have militia going after the minerals. And if they did, it would only make it harder for law-abiding people to do business.

The lesson of Kimberley? Demonize criminals, not minerals. Go after the cause, not a symptom. Global Witness would never support this because they wouldn't be able to use it as a fundraising message. They would rather elongate the problem forever by going after they symptom. They raised a lot of money demanding a Kimberley process and then raised a lot more railing against it for ten years. Now they can raise money for another ten years demanding a replacement for the process they created, so they can rail against that one, too.

It makes for great fundraising, but meanwhile untold thousands are hurt by going after the symptom instead of the cause. Kimberley was bad enough. Dodd-Frank, which demonizes at least four minerals throughout central Africa and involves 100,000 companies, will be a hundred times as damaging to the innocent tribes who mine these minerals in the Congo. Even before it is implemented a de facto embargo of central Africa has devastated the entire region.

Here we go again.

Dodd-Frank should keep Global Witness and Enough Project employed for decades before they declare it dead, too. Then they can raise money dancing on its grave. It's a win-win for them. But what about the people dying in the Congo because of it? That's not their problem - they have bills to pay.

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